Solar eclipse of August 31, 1970

An annular solar eclipse occurred on Monday, August 31–Tuesday, September 1, 1970. A solar eclipse occurs when the Moon passes between Earth and the Sun, thereby totally or partly obscuring the image of the Sun for a viewer on Earth. An annular solar eclipse occurs when the Moon's apparent diameter is smaller than the Sun's, blocking most of the Sun's light and causing the Sun to look like an annulus (ring). An annular eclipse appears as a partial eclipse over a region of the Earth thousands of kilometres wide. Annularity was visible from the Territory of Papua and New Guinea (today's Papua New Guinea), Gilbert and Ellice Islands (the part that belongs to Tuvalu now) on September 1st (Tuesday), West Samoa (name changed to Samoa later) and the whole American Samoa except Swains Island on August 31st (Monday).

Solar eclipse of August 31, 1970
Map
Type of eclipse
NatureAnnular
Gamma-0.5364
Magnitude0.94
Maximum eclipse
Duration407 sec (6 m 47 s)
Coordinates20.3°S 164°W / -20.3; -164
Max. width of band258 km (160 mi)
Times (UTC)
Greatest eclipse21:55:30
References
Saros144 (14 of 70)
Catalog # (SE5000)9443

Solar eclipses of 1968–1971

This eclipse is a member of a semester series. An eclipse in a semester series of solar eclipses repeats approximately every 177 days and 4 hours (a semester) at alternating nodes of the Moon's orbit.[1]

Saros 144

It is a part of Saros cycle 144, repeating every 18 years, 11 days, containing 70 events. The series started with partial solar eclipse on April 11, 1736. It contains annular eclipses from July 7, 1880 through August 27, 2565. There are no total eclipses in the series. The series ends at member 70 as a partial eclipse on May 5, 2980. The longest duration of annularity will be 9 minutes, 52 seconds on December 29, 2168.

Tritos series

This eclipse is a part of a tritos cycle, repeating at alternating nodes every 135 synodic months (≈ 3986.63 days, or 11 years minus 1 month). Their appearance and longitude are irregular due to a lack of synchronization with the anomalistic month (period of perigee), but groupings of 3 tritos cycles (≈ 33 years minus 3 months) come close (≈ 434.044 anomalistic months), so eclipses are similar in these groupings.

Metonic series

The metonic series repeats eclipses every 19 years (6939.69 days), lasting about 5 cycles. Eclipses occur in nearly the same calendar date. In addition, the octon subseries repeats 1/5 of that or every 3.8 years (1387.94 days).

Notes
  1. van Gent, R.H. "Solar- and Lunar-Eclipse Predictions from Antiquity to the Present". A Catalogue of Eclipse Cycles. Utrecht University. Retrieved 6 October 2018.

References
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